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Yet another quick update.Ok so it’s not so quick and it’s not exactly what I was planning on talking about.This was going to be about helicopters.According to the plan, it should be about the helicopters but when I sat down to write it there simply wasn’t much interesting to write about.Simply put, things are proceeding slowly. They just arent visually interesting. Unless you want to know about hitpoints, rvmats and config settings.

Woe is me.

I’ve had some problems with my main PC recently, three hard drives dying one after another.Had to swap out the motherboard too, headset died, driver issues all sorts plaguing me.I’ve still got one bug that I just can’t shift.Random lock up – everything freezes and there is no coming back.You have to reset and it leaves nothing in the event logs.So, you can imagine, confidence that the system won’t just die on me when I’m baking or just modelling something isn’t too high.Progress has been slowed.

But things are moving.The helos will follow soon enough.

The LPD is still causing me no end of grief.Scripts, alignment, poly counts, proxies, damage simulation.Oh, woe is me, just don’t even go there.

Typhoon is paused while i sort out the Air Weapons - more on that below.

Helos are a bit tedious - all the unseen slog of damage, rvmats and texture tweaking.

And a lot of other stuff.

Hawks are flying

So recently, I’ve been playing around with the Hawk T1A.Mainly because I had reached a point with the Typhoon that i didnt want to mess with the model and setup. It became obscenely complicated because of the pre-Jets DLC menu system I'd been developing I didn't want to deal with untangling all the bits while I tried to work out the new features. So the Hawk T1A has become my testbed for the new feature set.

Success, mostly

In this we have Success! Woohoo. If you aren’t a modder yourself you probably aren’t aware of some of the issues aircraft modders have been facing.The physX on the planes is a pain in the arse.The majority of people I’ve spoken too are having problems with it.Using Firewill’s tutorial doesn’t seem to help either.Mad things happen to the Hawk and others when I try to use it.I must be missing something but no one I know has got it working properly yet.

I’ve had some ‘fun’ with the ejection seat setup too.Attempting to follow BIS’s setup didn’t work.

First it was, "there is no seat". Then we had, "We have a seat but no pilot". Then we had "Spinal comression, my head is under my arse" (No jokes please) and finally we had sucess, albeit pressed a bit too far into the seat. Eddie aka WLD427 managed to sort it out for me in the end.As well as some problems with the ADEN 30 mm cannon pod on the Hawks.It proved a very frustrating setup but satisfying in the end.Without his help, I’d have gone back to making Rubber Ducks.It was just that frustrating.

Down the Rabbit hole

But it has led me down a huge rabbit hole or Air Weapons.I can’t tell you how much of a surprise this has been.Messing around with the Jets DLC has shown me that I needed to re-think some of my addons.Especially the weapons use.Then setting up the Hawk to use the new pylon system just pulled the rug out from under me.I’ve had to re-work and re-config all my weapons and make pylons, racks and rails for them.Given I had over 150 items in the pack to start with I now have 189.Some of which – like the rocket pods – I’m just going to have to remake.Sounds like fun doesn’t it.

Given the Air Weapons pack is common to 80% of the addons sat in testing folder and since I haven’t yet find a way around actually doing the work properly. (Although, If I’m honest I’ve tried) ; I need to sort the pack out first. before trying to add the pylons setup to everything else.

Procrastination is a true artform when done properly.

And with that insightful note. I leave you be.

Think of me sloggin through thousands of lines of config setting up all the weapons. Lots and lots of weapons...